Logos Robo-Jam Number 2 available for your listening and dancing pleasure!

It's become an annual event.  About once a year (well, this year and last), Kristof Lauwers organizes a world-wide interactive jam with the computer controlled acoustic instruments of the Logos Foundation in Gent, Belgium. (www.logosfoundation.org)  Kristof designed the software which lets a number of people give commands to the robots and they play the music you specify.  With a number of people playing, some very interesting improvisations result.  This morning at 4 am (which was 8 pm Tuesday, in Gent Belgium), I participated in the jam with 9 other folks from around the world, simultaneously.   Here's the list of who was jamming, and where they were.  The results were heard by an audience in Gent, and now, by you.

The crew:

Kristof Lauwers, Yvan Vandersanden and Troy Rodgers at Logos Foundation, Gent, Belgium

Celio Vasconcelos at home in Aachen Germany

Scott Barton and Steve Kemper at the University of Virginia (Virginia Center for Computer Music) Charlottesville, Virginia USA

Jaime Reis in Linda-a-Velha, Portugal, west of Lisbon, - with students in his Acoustics class at the Conservatorio de Musica de Linda-a-Velha, Escola de Musica Nossa Senhora de Cabo.

Warren Burt at home in Wollongong Australia

Simon Halsberghe - in a lazy armchair in Antwerp Belgium

Brent Wetters - at home  in Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Juan Sebastian Lach Lau - at home in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico

Here's the results of last night's performance.  This is the recording made in the Logos studio, during  the concert.  It's a lot higher fidelity than what I was hearing over the Skype connection during the performance, and I'm delighted at the details in some of the sound combinations.   Enjoy!  It's 18 minutes and 33 seconds long.

 Update 4 May 2010:  And here are some photos of Jaime Reis and his students in the Escola de Musica Nossa Senhora de Cabo where he was performing his contribution.  The photos of Jaime are by Rita Cordeiro, and Jaime took the one of his students.  Looking at the photo of the students, you can see the video projector and the chat room interface that we performed with.  The photo of Jaime with the wall projection shows what the students were looking at  - the chat room interface projected.  They also heard the performance that was happening in Gent in the classroom at the same time.  If you want to see pictures of the Logos instruments themselves, go to www.logosfoundation.org and look up "Musical Robots."

And one more picture - this is a screen-grab of the chat-room interface devised by Kristof Lauwers that we performed with.  To the left is a list of commands.  At the bottom of the screen are the riffs people are playing.  At the upper right is the list of currently playing instruments.  In the middle is the chat itself, with the robot's responses in red, and all the other players named.

Illawarra Video Installation Documentary Video Now on YouTube

It's almost a contradiction in terms that a work such as my video installation "Illawarra-The Lake In Winter", which relies on being in a large space with large projections for its impact, should be reduced to the lo-res video and lo-fi sound of YouTube.  However, for all those friends who can't make it to Wollongong for the show, which closes March 26 (and yes, I acknowledge that parking is IMPOSSIBLE on the UoW Campus - my best suggested times for visiting are late afternoons, especially late Friday - there are usually parking spots available then), you can at least get the flavor of the installation from this little documentary video.  And besides, maybe this video will serve to interest a curator somewhere to want to put the installation on in their gallery, and then the work can have another life in another place.

Warren Burt: Illawarra-The Lake In Winter (2007-2010) University of Wollongong Gallery until March 26, 2010

WARREN BURT VIDEO INSTALLATION ON NOW! - and why I haven't been around, too.

Hi Folks!

Apologies for not being around to develop this site further, but on Feb 10, both my computers crashed, and I was limping along on webmail for about a month.  Then, this installation began rearing it's lovely head, and I had to actually go out and buy a new computer in order to have the installation up and running on time.  I finished the DVDs for the installation on time, and it's now up and running.  Details below.  For those in the Illawarra or Sydney areas, it would be great to see you at the opening on Thursday, or sometime during the run of the show.  Meanwhile, now that I'm reassembling my digital life from the wreckage, you can expect to see more new material here really soon.

Bests,

Warren

WAYS OF LISTENING - A NEW ESSAY

Here's a new essay of mine, in which I list some of the different ways of listening I can think of.  It's part of an ongoing exploration of how we listen, and the different ways in which our consciousness is focussed when we do listen.  Along the way, I make reference to a 1998 score by David Dunn "Purposeful Listening in Complex States of Time," which you can also download from the essay page.  As well, I also refer to my 1981 essay "Musical Perception and Exploratory Music," which is also downloadable from the essay page.

To download my essay in pdf format, just click here.

To read the essay on line, and get the links for the Dunn score and my earlier essay, just click here.

As always, comments are welcome through the "Contact Me" page.

Bass Drum, Vibraphone, Voice and Electronics - The Recording

Last year, I wrote a percussion and electronics piece for the young virtuoso Melbourne-based percussionist Matthias Schack-Arnott.  It was called "Bass Drum, Vibraphone, Voice and Electronics" and that pretty well describes the instrumentation.  What it doesn't describe is what the voice does - the percussionist is called to yell out, act out, declaim, and otherwise improvise with some of my favorite comic book and other pop lit quotes.  Matthias premiered the piece on 31 July 2009 at the Quiver concert at Richmond Uniting Church, Melbourne, and he just sent me an mp3 of the performance, recorded by the amazing Michael Hewes.  I think the recording is wonderful, and so, here it is.  If you want to download the mp3, you can do it here.  Many thanks to Matthias for his great performance, and to Michael for his great recording.

For those of you who want to listen to it in streaming audio, just click below.  And a special no-prize to anyone who can recognize all the sources for all the quotes.

Warren Burt: Bass Drum, Vibraphone, Voice and Electronics - performed by Matthias Schack-Arnott, recording by Michael Hewes.